Mermaid Candy – October update

I am sure that you all thought I had forgotten about this little project. It did stall for a patch as I have three separate English Paper Piecing quilt tops on the go, but a recent long weekend away was just the incentive I needed to get some more hexagon blocks prepped and stitched up!

Here are all the blocks I have completed since we last updated. Rather than making all the different styles of block simultaneously as I did previously, I have decided to now focus on each block type separately – it may be a bit boring to sew, but it makes cutting out and making sure of a variety of fabrics used a lot easier!

I have had to include some of the reprinted lines of Mendocino, and I have discovered that not only is it made of a different base cloth, but also the scale of the feature mermaids is different – for the earlier blocks I fitted a whole mermaid onto a tumbler diamond, but above you can see that the poor girl had to lose her tail! I am glad for the extra prints though, as it has allowed me to add some variety into the colours, including the blues and the blush pinks.

As always, my favourite part of these kinds of blocks has to be matching the feature prints to the support acts – the colours need to harmonise with what they are close to, but also with the quilt overall. Allowing yourself to be guided by the colours in your main fabric collection is always a good way of ensuring that the finished quilt will look good. If in doubt, use the printers dots on the selvedge to help choose your supporting fabrics.

As of this update, all of the 3 diamond tumbler blocks have been completed, and now I am tackling the 6 triangle hexagons. You may notice that as usual my obsessive side has won out and all the grids and lines in those triangles match each other. What can I say, I have compulsive tendencies!

I like the idea that this quilt is quietly growing in the background, and by completing it piece by piece I think the finished result will be a wonderful surprise to lay out. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions on this project or English Paper Piecing in general that I can help you with!

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Hi Janis 🙂 thanks for your question! I have not had much experience with Batiks myself as they aren’t my style, but from my understanding they are of a finer weave than regular quilting cotton. This sometimes causes problems when sewing them as needles have difficulty piercing through the weave. I would assume that you can English Paper Piece them, however because of their dye treatment you might want to see if you need to thread baste them. I have had experience with some brands of fabric being very difficult to glue baste, I believe that is due in part to the “sizing” treatment applied to the fabric. I would suggest a test of a few blocks before committing. If you are still concerned, the Millefiori quilt facebook group is a great resource, I’m sure someone there can help you out.